[rosser]

Please take some effort to improve your understanding of the notion of "social norms", how they're enforced, and how they evolve.

I promise you, a person in a position of prestige or power openly, willingly associating with — even benefiting from — someone who is known to have committed a transgressive act is definitional of normalization.

[matz1]

Normalization of what ?

1. Normalization of the act of associating with someone that commit transgressive act

or

2. Normalization of the transgressive act itself

I agree with the first one but not the 2nd one.

[rosser]

How about:

3. Normalization of people who commit transgressive acts.

Once again, for the nosebleed seats: this whole argument is about how the Media Lab's taking Epstein's money, and welcoming him on the premises, conveys the message, "Well, he can't be that bad."

Remember how we follow the behavior of people more than their words, in determining what is and isn't acceptable? When people tell us one thing, and behave differently, we pretty reliably follow one of those over the other.

So it does not matter how many times anyone says Epstein was a shitty guy who behaved shittily. Every single word is utterly undermined by the press release photo of him and Joichi-san smiling and shaking hands, or whatever.

EDIT: So, while normalizing the person isn't directly normalizing the behavior, it's also kinda a distinction without a difference. A person who wants to behave like Epstein has been shown that he's still able to be socially accepted, even at the very highest levels of society, even if he does the thing that brazenly.

How, exactly, is that not normalizing the behavior? In what possible way is that not all kinds of "Eh, whatever..." over something so egregious?

[matz1]

> 3. Normalization of people who commit transgressive acts.

This could happen if the law enforcement let it happen. The question you should ask is why he is not already in jail since the transgressive act in question is already is illegal.

Media Lab is not in position to put someone in jail or charge someone a crime.

[rosser]

I'm well aware of which questions I should be asking about this situation. They aren't those.

Thanks for your time. I don't see further discussion going anywhere new.